Just got back from a short Frankfurt trip and enjoyed the beautiful spring weather in Germany. Everything was in full bloom. On Saturday, May 2, at the Zeil Plaza in front of the Hauptwache folks were celebrating spring “Frühling für Frankfurt 2009” by having all kinds of food and drink booths along with a stage for entertainment. The people were out in full force. One of the interesting sights that showed me just how close culture in Germany is getting to our American culture were the junior cheerleaders for the Frankfurt Pirates American football team mingling with the crowd and handing out promotional game tickets. Too bad I had to leave the next day and could not attend the game. I took the picture of the cheerleading squad shown below. Their American coach, Ashleigh Krien, was very helpful to get them all lined up for me so that I could take the picture.
Hip Hop Contest at Frankfurt Spring Festival
Junior Cheerleaders of the Frankfurt Pirates American Football team
As I went down the Zeil, which is the main shopping and walking street in downtown Frankfurt, I noticed that their big project, a downtown indoor mall, was finally done. It’s called “MyZeil” and boasts a modern, American style mall with a giant famous black hole on the outside façade. I took a quick look inside but could barely move because of the crowd. Didn’t anyone tell them that there is a recession going on?
The artful black hole that shoots through the entrance of the MyZeil Mall
The logo for MyZeil Shopping mall downtown Frankfurt
inside MyZeil
As I had some items to get myself, I continued down the Zeil with my flight crew along and something else hit me. Woolworth in Germany was still open. I will have to check that one out. As many of you probably know, the name Woolworth has been extinct in the US for quite a while. The company changed its priorities and closed their five and dime stores but is actually surviving as a whole new type of company which it converted to in the late 90’s as the “Foot Locker” stores. In Europe it was still quite a popular chain and had many stores in Germany, Austria and England. I heard that they were insolvent over there and I did notice that all the stores were closed in London. So I checked and found that the German stores were still OK and from what I could tell, thriving.
Captain Bill in front of Woolworth Frankfurt
Had some technical problems with uploading the pictures due to the slow internet in the hotel in Amsterdam but now got them on the blog. Sorry for the delay.
Captain Bill
Find more like this: Captain Bill's Travels
I shopped at the Woolworth in Bremerhaven, the one in Hildesheim closed up years back. Rein and myself enjoyed our 3 weeks in Germany so much we really hated to come back home to the USA, but were anxious to eat some American food. Cannot leave on bread, meat and cheese 3 times each day. We were in Berlin on 5-23 with around 600,000 or 750,000 people helping Berlin celebrate a 60th anniversary of reunification. What a crowd! We stayed around the corner at a hotel from Check Point Charlie. I have a nice photo of Rein and myself at Check Point Charlie that I will put in a future edition of the German American Journal.
The Woolworth store in central Frankfurt is now closed. The company is in bad shape but still trading in several German towns. Probably for not much longer. They folded in Britain at the end of 2008.
True, the recession hasn’t really bitten in Frankfurt the same way as elsewhere. It’s one of the wealthiest areas of Germany and most work in industries that haven’t been the hardest hit (e.g. manufacturing).
The Germans love gridiron and were very sad when the NFL stopped its European League – not for lack of support for the Frankfurt Galaxy franchise!
Donna, you must have been low on money, because you can get all kinds of chow in Germany, especially in Berlin. As well as German, Italian, Chinese, Indian and American you can get Indonesian, Korean, Portuguese, Ethiopian cuisine to name a few. Next time treat yourselves to a decent meal once a day!